Bedroom Reno – Making the most of a tiny condo

It’s been 2 years since we closed on the condo, and it’s taken all this time to realize that it’s actually ours and we can do whatever we like with it 🙂 So we’re starting the expensive and exciting reno-phase!

This was the bedroom when we first moved in. It was really nice, but given that the condo is tiny, this bed orientation meant that when you opened the door you had only a narrow perimeter of knee banging space to get around the room in. The first thing we did was rotate that bed and push it against the wall.

Then we covered the walls and closet doors with paintable striped wallpaper, and in my predictable favourite colour palette we covered the walls and bulkhead.

We added little details on top of that, faux crown moulding with concealed lighting underneath, fabric hoops with the swatches we bought at Purl Soho, and a slightly butchered Paul Simon lyric on the ceiling.

The results! Before:

After:

Rotating the bed really opened up a lot of space, so I created a reading/knitting spot beside the bed. We added a little area rug for a touch more comfort.

Couldn’t resist a shot of some of my knitting 🙂

And another shot of the concealed lighting – it was easier than I thought to install, we did it using strip lighting from IKEA.

Those black-out curtains were killing all the light so we replaced them with light linen curtains. I love the fact that, even though the view is lovely, closing the curtains gives us a nice ”cocoon” sort of feeling. It’s the perfect spot for snoozing on a hot afternoon.

Because rotating the bed meant removing the bedside tables, Tito built this mini-shelf onto the back of the bed, attached clamp lights and used to it hold up everyone’s charger cables.

The bedside tables now display some of his work using copper and clay.

And – you might recognize the blog’s new look from this post 🙂

It’s amazing to me, the difference between making a place yours by putting your stuff in it, and making it yours by changing and designing it to suit your personality. We couldn’t be happier with the results!